


Re: The Prisoner

by Timeskipped



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: A3! Act 9 Spoilers, A3! Part/ACT 3 Spoilers, Alcohol, M/M, Time Loop, Unrequited Love, but i think i should still warn for it, reni kisses yukio even though yukio’s in a relationship, yukio doesn’t reciprocate or kiss back or anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28660953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timeskipped/pseuds/Timeskipped
Summary: If it was Reni’s stupid, childish feelings for Yukio that caused this time loop, he doesn’t want to make everything worse by ignoring it.Reni doesn’t write about kissing Yukio in his diary, when he later puts pen to paper. He blots out the entire experience of the loop, because it doesn’t count. Doing this is more like kissing the statue of a god, rather than feeling the soft kiss of a real person, because Yukio is—has always been—impossible to reach.
Relationships: Kamikizaka Reni/Tachibana Yukio
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	Re: The Prisoner

_one_

Reni kisses Yukio on the twelfth loop.

It’s ugly and bruising, forced by desperation more than anything else. His hands find their way into Yukio’s hair, as if the strands will cover his fingers from the shocked _beat_ -beating of Yukio’s heart, or the way Reni’s own is echoed in his chest, on his lips, behind his eyelids, in his fingertips.

There is nothing for him here, he thinks, pulling away, smiling with all teeth and no grace. Yukio’s eyes are wide, and Reni just keeps smiling.

“I didn’t think that would work,” Reni explains, and guilt bubbles beneath his ribs, pressing against the inside of his chest. An echo of his heartbeat remains. His hands still grip the sides on Yukio’s face, and he lets go slowly, painfully, drawing out the damage on his heart. “But I thought we had to try.”

Yukio does not love him. Yukio will never love him.

“Please don’t do that again, Reni,” Yukio smiles, lips raising as he recovers from shock, eyes bordering on laughter; like he doesn’t believe Reni did it on purpose, or maybe like he doesn’t think this counts, because they’re stuck in a fucking time loop.

Reni tries to erase the feeling of Yukio’s lips from his mind, because it _doesn’t count._ It doesn’t work, and he bites the inside of his cheek as he steps back.

Yukio’s lips had been hard against his, from the pressure Reni had leaned in with, the desperation that caused him to just _try,_ because if it was his stupid, childish feelings for the man that caused this, he didn’t want to make everything worse by ignoring it.

Reni smiles. It still feels fake, but some of his grace is recovered, this time. “Sorry. I won’t.”

He doesn’t write about this in his diary, when he later puts pen to paper. He blots out the entire experience of the loop, because it doesn’t count. Doing this is more like kissing the statue of a god, rather than feeling the soft kiss of a real person, because Yukio is—has always been—impossible to reach.

* * *

_two_

Reni drinks alone; loop fourteen is harsh on him.

The door opens, then shuts. Reni doesn’t bother to look behind him to see who entered, doesn’t bother doing anything except take refuge in his childish feelings. Yukio wouldn’t expect him to hide backstage, so that’s where Reni stays, throwing back cheap beers.

“You shouldn’t be drinkin’ back here.” Syu’s voice. Reni thanks a god he’s not sure exists—or maybe one he’s not sure _likes him,_ if he’s stuck in a loop like this—that it’s not Yukio.

Yukio had said goodbye to him this morning, off to do—whatever Yukio does. Whatever, _whatever,_ it’s not like it’s Reni’s problem. However Yukio wants to fix the time loop, it won’t be his problem until Yukio comes back with a half-hearted solution, convincing him with that easy smile that this time, surely, it’ll work. And it won’t. Reni isn’t a fool.

“I hate him,” Reni rasps. He feels close to tears. He’s 21 years old and falling to pieces in the backstage of _his stage._ The stage he created with his own hands. “He’s so stupid.”

“What happened?” Syu asks, crouching next to him like the absolute saint he is. He may not be a lot older than Reni himself, but he has his act together, has been taking care of what Reni asks of him. His hand reaches Reni’s shoulder.

Reni can’t tell the truth, so he tells half of one: “I kissed Tachibana.”

“You—”

“Don’t say it,” Reni hisses, shutting his eyes tight, “I know it was a bad idea. I know he’s in a relationship, _fuck,_ I shouldn’t have done that.” He knows his words won’t count. He knows the time loop will wash this all away, scrub away Syu’s memories of the conversation until all that’s left is the childhood friend that Reni left behind two weeks ago—one day ago, for Syu.

So, sue him if he wants to be overly emotional now.

“He told me not to do it again, and I won’t,” Reni breathes deep, “but it doesn’t even count. I wouldn’t even have done it normally, but then—” The time loop had forced his feelings out. Squeezed them from him, turning him utterly irrational. “—I didn’t even think. I should’ve said something instead of just _kissing him._ ”

“Reiji,” Syu says.

Reni looks up with tired eyes, and despises himself. Syu’s lips are pinched together, and suddenly Reni is afraid. His memories within the loop might not count, but they still linger, like the way his fingertips still remember the feeling of Yukio’s hair.

“What,” Reni snaps, feeling any second Syu will force his sins to light.

Syu frowns, lips twisting. He shakes his head, though, hand still firm against Reni’s shoulder. “I… I’m sorry that happened to you. Sorry you fell for someone like _him._ ”

Reni closes his eyes. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Someone like _him_? Yukio is someone who can pull Reni inwards, a devil that changes everything until Reni is simply a human, worshipping a man, an actor, a god. What choice did Reni have but to fall for him, an impossible, unrequited sort of love?

If this love is _falling,_ then Reni would like to think he can brace his fall.

But that seems impossible _now,_ clinging to a semblance of self-importance and wasting money on alcohol he won’t feel in the next, same morning. What can he use to brace his fall, if Yukio will always be right at the start and end of each repeating day?

“God, I’m an idiot,” Reni murmurs, letting his head fall into his hand. If he were stronger, he’d shed this unbeautiful emotion, clean his hands of everything here. But Reni has never been strong, because strength is for people who aren’t in love with men like Yukio.

* * *

_three_

The fifteenth loop rushes past in a blur, because somehow Yukio decided that he needs to stay with Reni through the whole day. Reni’s mouth feels dry, most of the day, thinking about the uneasy balance between them.

That night, Reni dreams of kissing Yukio until his lips are bruised. When he pulls back, Yukio’s face is an eternal blank, a nothing where his eyes should be frowning at him for trying it again.

If this is what a god has done to Reni, then he will accept it, he thinks, curled tightly within his blankets. If Yukio is a god, then he’s a cruel one, one who pulls Reni to pieces, tortures him even in his dreams. Reni is nothing without Yukio, the god who changed him forever, and Reni is certain that Yukio _is_ a god, because every time he smiles it’s like everything is real again.

The thoughts turn around in Reni’s delirious mind. They loop, like a broken record, or a single day repeating over and over. He feels sick, because Yukio is still getting in his way.

“I hate him,” he mumbles into his pillow, where Yukio can’t hear him.

It doesn’t convince himself that the words are true. Just because Yukio isn’t there to hear them doesn’t mean Reni isn’t stupidly, desperately, truly in love with him. The sixteenth loop is a failure, even as Reni tries to find a way to pull apart his insides and flush out the lingering attachment to Yukio’s ideals.

* * *

_four_

Reni doesn’t write down what happened in the days they’ve been trapped. He’s not sure if Yukio is, or if it’s a secret both of them will take alone into their lives after they escape. Will they look at each other and laugh about it, or will they curse what it did to them?

Reni is sick of looking at the sky and seeing the same weather, day after day.

Yukio doesn’t seem to mind, though, even on the seventeenth loop. There’s an emptiness in Reni’s chest as he watches that man hum to himself, the spring weather soothing him comfortably enough to make him smile slowly at Reni. Too carefree, Reni thinks, picking at a stray thread on his sleeve.

“This must be from something in our argument,” Yukio says. “It’ll be okay as long as we figure it out. We just have to come to a conclusion.”

“We’ve been trying for weeks now,” Reni says, swallowing down something that tastes bitter and hot, something like _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you._ “We still haven’t found out what caused it, except—” He glances down to the plushie in Yukio’s hands that he’s been trying to ignore. “That _thing._ We don’t know _why._ Unless you have some sort of other idea that we haven’t tried after all this time.”

“Well, we’ve been apart some days,” Yukio says. “Sometimes you just vanish.”

It’s true. There have been days where Reni stayed away from Yukio, where he tried to blot out the memories of the loop. They might not count, but to Reni they’re like bruises around his throat: he can still feel the hands choking him, even if they’re not there anymore. Those days, he could do nothing about the loop, so he just let it run its course.

“Either way, it’s about the theater, isn’t it?” It has to be. That’s what their fight was about.

He turns back to Yukio; Yukio’s eyes are gentle, but not towards Reni. Instead, he gazes at the plushie, fingers squishing it slightly. It smiles, still. “Maybe it’s not,” Yukio says. “Even if we have different ideas of what we want from the theater, it’s not _that_ bad, right?” He turns to Reni once more, hope alight in his expression.

Reni presses his lips together and doesn’t answer. The hope withers on Yukio’s face. The silence that falls between them is a tense one, and Reni almost breaks it; _I just want you to listen to me_ on the tip of his tongue.

The silence breaks under the weight of their waiting. “No,” Yukio sighs. “You’re right. The theater is important to both of us. It couldn’t be anything else. There’s nobody else involved but the company we made.”

Oh, how Reni wishes this could’ve been solved by kissing him.

If things were better, cleaner, more beautiful, Reni would’ve been able to break everything with a fairytale kiss. A final act for their stage, where Yukio tells Reni that he doesn’t love him, and Reni’s heart settles down its harsh beating against his chest. What Reni wouldn’t give for the loop to have all been because of his feelings, his weaknesses, the god he chases again and again.

But Yukio is as foolish as ever. Something bubbles inside Reni as he gazes at Yukio, at how he still won’t understand Reni’s feelings no matter how many times he puts them into the open. All he wants is to see Yukio onstage again, and yet—

Yukio does not love him. Yukio will never love him.

(“I’m sorry that happened to you. Sorry you fell for someone like _him,_ ” Syu had said. Those words are stuck inside Reni’s lungs, even if the Syu from today doesn’t know he ever said them.)

* * *

_five_

Reni dreams of Yukio killing him. In the dream, he exits the loop with a smile on his face as he dies with the man above him, hands cradling Reni’s face like Reni once cradled his. Yukio’s fingernails dig into his skin. Blood flows from the wounds Yukio inflicted.

Reni wakes up with sweat dripping from his face. His mouth is dry.

When they were in high school, the two of them used to happily go watch plays and street acts together on the weekends, when Reni still lived with his parents and still wanted to be everything for Yukio. At that point, a single glimpse of the actor that Yukio became onstage was enough to sway Reni’s heart.

When he looks at himself in the mirror, tired and raw, he can’t see that easily swayed boy there. He splashes water on his face, shakes off every remnant of his dream, and every piece of who he used to be.

Reni used to be a vessel for his parent’s wants. Then, he was an actor, dragged around tiredly by someone who he might’ve even called a friend. Now, he is simply waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the moment he allows himself to realize that Yukio will never be who he wants.

But he can’t stop himself from wanting.

Yukio is a cruel god, and Reni barely believes that he can escape simply by believing in Yukio’s god-like acting anymore, as much as he longs to see it again. Yukio is a devil, for shaping Reni into this, for pulling him and never stopping, for killing him in his dreams and never realizing that if he’d only listen to Reni and make Mankai as perfect and beautiful as it could be, then maybe they’d escape this fucking time loop.

Maybe what he needs is distance, something to solidify the hatred slowly pouring itself into him, shaping him into a person he never wanted to be. This time loop is destroying him, and maybe what Reni needs to end it is to let it tear him apart.

* * *

_six_

_This could be the last loop,_ Reni reminds himself, waiting for Syu outside on the eighteenth loop.

Syu’s door is like the door to hell. As soon as it opens, as soon as Reni forces the words out of his throat, there will be no going back to naively believing that Yukio is a god. But Syu himself is kind, which is why Reni wraps himself in the coat Syu once gave to him, despite the mild weather. He already called Syu and told him he was coming, so any moment now...

The door opens. Syu stands there, face pinched in concern. “Reiji? You wanted to talk to me?”

“I’m leaving Mankai,” Reni says, and the words drop like stones through the air. Reni shifts his weight. “Winter Troupe can exist without me. I thought you’d want to know.”

For Syu, it’s probably like this: a day ago, Reni and Yukio had tensions escalate, and Winter Troupe—which Reni rejected leading because he’d rather assist Yukio than the subtroupe—avoided Reni as usual after these episodes. All of Winter Troupe does this, with their lack of upfront confrontation, including Syu. Still, even though Syu’s distaste at Yukio’s attitude was muffled, Reni had noticed the set line of his lips all the same.

Something in it had sparked pride, a kind of vindictive joy at having his thoughts that Yukio was _wrong_ echoed back at him. Eighteen days later, and the feeling is replaced with tiredness.

At that time, Syu pushed Reni towards working things out with Yukio, though he didn’t deign to become involved himself. For Syu right now, his mouth pulled into a shocked frown, he must realize, to some degree, that Reni leaving is because Syu pushed them to talk.

Reni doesn’t blame Syu for this.

“You’re really leaving?” Syu’s jaw is set in place. “After all this time?” His tone isn’t quite accusatory. There’s a resignation in his voice, because even he can tell that Reni has never quite fit in with Mankai. With Yukio, especially.

“I don’t have a choice,” Reni glares at the ground. “Tachibana doesn’t listen to me. And if you’d _seen_ how much I struggled for another option, then you’d believe there’s no other way too.”

Syu opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it. He sighs. “I see.”

Something feels off about the interaction, like Reni shouldn’t be the one cutting this off. Loss sweeps over him in waves, and he realizes with a start that he doesn’t truly want to let this go. Yukio, perhaps, is something he’s willing to destroy, but Reni still remembers Syu’s private smile on the day he joined Mankai. Reni’s fingernails dig into his palms.

If the loop really ends here, then this conversation will, for the first time in over two weeks, truly _count._ But even if it _isn’t_ the end, Reni can’t wash away the guilt filling him up. To leave Syu of all people alone is the greatest betrayal Reni can offer his childhood friend.

“I’m sorry,” Reni says, and bows his head. If he were stronger, maybe, or more desperate, he’d ask Syu to come with him.

But Syu has Winter Troupe, and Reni has nothing.

Because of his own faults, Reni hasn’t talked much to Winter Troupe during these loops, despite being a part of their group. It’s this distance that leaves him to test the waters with Syu alone, who knows him better than any other in the company. He’s gentle, like freshly fallen snow, as he rests a hand gently on Reni’s shoulder.

“Don’t apologize.”

He says it in the same tone as he told Reni that he was sorry that Reni had fallen for Yukio.

Reni laughs weakly, still not meeting Syu’s eyes. He almost wants to confess once again that he was in love with Yukio. That he kissed him, stupidly, that he keeps chasing after him, that he can’t imagine losing his attachment to the beauty that is Yukio Tachibana as long as he lives. Reni is in love with Yukio in equal measure to his hatred for the man. Tearing it apart is all he can do to save himself.

If this loop is the last one, though, then Reni won’t be able to wash away his confession. Syu will _know,_ forever onwards. Reni doesn’t want the memory of the kiss to follow him like that.

So he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t say anything about the loop at all.

* * *

_seven_

The eighteenth loop is the last one. There will be no nineteenth.

“I figured it out,” Reni says, when the trains have stopped moving and Yukio is stuck in Reni’s home for the night once more. It’s a mirror image of the first day, when they argued with each other, when Yukio brought that ugly plushie that ruined them into their lives.

“You did?!” And Yukio’s eyes are shining like stars, like dreams. Like a failure who clings to his ideals even as it brings him closer to ruin.

It’s taken this long for Reni to spit it out from where it’s been burning in his throat. Somehow, it’s harder to say it to Yukio than it was to Syu. “Yes. You can continue to deal with the company however you want. I’ll step back.” Reni turns to his couch, where Yukio sits alone, to see his reaction, bracing himself for suspicion.

Yukio’s jaw drops.

Reni would find this funny, maybe, that he’s able to shock him, if he couldn’t feel the way his fingers press painfully into his own crossed arms.

Yukio nods, slowly, mouth closing and lips pressing together. Reni waits for Yukio to speak, but he instead stares at the plushie in his hands. There’s no malice in his gaze, no more shock or misery. Just acceptance that whatever Reni has figured out, he’ll try it.

Reni turns around and sighs. “Don’t let it get to your head,” he says, grabbing a blanket to offer Yukio. Despite everything, he’s not about to make Yukio sleep on the cold couch without some reminder that once, Reni would smile tiredly when Yukio would crash on the couch, too exhausted from a part time job he’d taken on for the start of Mankai Company to do much more than accept the blanket Reni gave him.

It was the start of a hopeless dream. The remains taste bitter on Reni’s tongue.

When he turns back to Yukio, Yukio’s smiling again. It stings, because this _devil_ shouldn’t smile in such a carefree manner, not when Reni is destroying everything he’s created with him. But how could Yukio know, when Reni is simply a man caught in the loop with him?

“I hope it works,” Yukio says. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

Reni nods. The words he should say about leaving forever have withered on his tongue. “I’ll… see you in the morning.” He directs the words at Yukio, but he watches Yukio’s hands gently place the plushie down instead of watching the man’s face.

“Goodnight, Reni,” Yukio says softly, looking up at Reni and beaming when Reni finally meets his eyes again. For a moment, Reni thinks he’s about to fall into them, into the endless love he once thought would never die. Yukio smiles like dreams are all reality is made of. Reni’s name is so sweet on his lips.

Reni remembers, then, how it felt to kiss him. How Yukio was completely still, like a living, breathing statue.

Reni doesn’t kiss Yukio this time, but he thinks of it. Something bubbles inside him, and this time, he can’t help but feel it in full, twisting his chest into something awful, something irreparable, like what he has with Yukio. He steps into the next room without returning the pleasant words given to him. The door clicks shut, leaving Yukio’s smile behind.

“I hate him,” he says, muffled behind a hand as the door closes and he’s alone. The words feel almost graceful, in his mouth. Almost _beautiful,_ like everything Reni has ever wanted to be.

He believes those words, this time.

It bursts like fireworks, or like the devil’s smile as he bid Reni goodnight, for them to see each other again on another day of the time loop. Unless, of course, this works.

Reni knows that it’ll work.

* * *

_null_

Reni’s sleep is dreamless.

When the light of morning falls into his eyes, he can feel his heart _beat_ -beating with anticipation. A small portion of him doesn’t want this to be the end, doesn’t want the only solution to make him leave the only god he’s ever been able to see in the flesh.

When he sees that the date has changed, he still breathes a sigh of relief. He’s free, _finally_ free of the devil that binds him.

He bids Yukio and Mankai goodbye with the news that _this_ was the only solution, and feels something ache in his chest when Yukio’s eyes widen with shock. The joy and delight of his own freedom falls off Yukio’s face, as if he was told that someone had died.

And maybe someone had, in the middle of the loop, in their dreams and in the eternity that bound them to each other. Reni’s heart is lost somewhere, searching for something that never existed. Maybe that’s as good as death; Reni knows that nothing will repair this, and Yukio does too, based on his silence.

But Reni knows now what he has to do, the person he must overcome. Reni will surpass Yukio’s god-like acting, one way or another.

He just had to let go of that god first.

**Author's Note:**

> (Reni hasn’t let go. He’s fooling himself.)
> 
> Thank you for reading!!!


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